Interesting Finds

10/30/10

We've been unpacking things all weekend at our new house.  It is finally starting to feel a little more organized.  While unpacking I found some pretty interesting things.  When we sold our house and moved into the rental house, I was in the hospital so our family packed us up.  I found all sorts of things I had completely forgotten about.  Here are some of my interesting finds:

- a bag of unopened scrapbook stickers from Hobby Lobby that I must have bought just prior to having the babies.  They were pregnancy stickers and Easter stickers.  We spent Easter in the hospital.  The babies were born the day after Easter.  It kind of felt as if time had stood still.  We went in at Easter, and now Halloween is the first holiday we will spend out of a hospital.

- a note that a nurse had written for us showing the babies' weights the first few days.  Even though I already knew that after a couple of days Camdyn had dropped down to just 1 lb, it was still shocking to see it on paper.

- a note that I had jotted down (I must have called the NICU and wrote notes to tell Jimmy later.)  It said, "Camdyn - 50%, 2.3 mL, arterial line" and "Cade -36%, 2.5 mL,  will attempt arterial line again later."  The percentages were their oxygen needs and the mL were the tiny amount of breast milk they were getting.  That really brought me back, and I am so thankful that we are not there now.

- tiny, precious preemie clothes.  Looking back at these clothes, I already can't even believe that these tiny, tiny clothes that fit in just the palm of my hand were once too big for them!  It really showed me just how much they have grown.

- My funniest find were the books that I had with Brenna - What to Expect When You are Expecting and What to Expect the First Year.  What a joke!  I don't think that you can find "Expect to go into labor at 24 weeks" anywhere in the first book, and I'm pretty sure that not one thing would be applicable to raising micro-preemies in the second book.  Every preemie mom would like to have a neat and tidy book to sum up what to expect in the first year; however, in the preemie world, all you can expect is to not know what will happen, when it will happen, or if it will happen.  (I quickly tossed these books into the donate pile, laughing as I did so.)

We are so excited to get to finally spend a holiday out of the hospital.  Since we went in at Easter, the babies spent Mother's Day, Father's Day, and July 4th in the NICU.  Then we were back at the hospital with Camdyn on Labor Day, so tomorrow will be our first holiday together as a family!  I can't wait to dress up the babies and Brenna for Halloween.  I will be sure to post some pictures of my adorable children soon.  Happy Halloween to all of you!